War And Peace
by Rainstorm Amaya Arianrhod
Summary: Twenty years of the life of a child, a teenager, a woman who grew up too fast. War does that for you, but it's peace Buri wishes for. twentyyears


**A/N:** Buri-centric twentyyears fic. War themeset. Please **_read and review!_**

**Disclaimer:** Nothing is mine

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**0- keeping watch on the border wars**

There had been war forever as far as Buriram Tourakom knew. Neverending skirmishes, short battles and long-drawn-out wars in miniature between the lowlanders and the K'mir. Fragments of wars- smouldering embers of a conflict that flared up without warning. Buri's mother believed in peace, but war was what she had to deal with, so she fought for her people until she realised she was carrying her first child. Then she stopped fighting with the men, and raised her children to be warriors. Buri was her first daughter, and when she was still very small Vanna wondered if she should teach this child the peace that Vanna wanted for the K'mir. The death of Buri's father because of a lowlander raid when the girl was only two put an abrupt end to Vanna's peaceful dreams; the decision was made.

**5- leaders will pull away from the pack**

Buri had one friend in the lowlander palace, discounting assorted brothers, and that friend was the princess. Thayet was older than Buri, and in better standing with the lowlander children, and it was Buri with her severely cropped hair- Kalasin had had Words with Vanna over that, but Vanna had not backed down –five brothers and distinct preference for bright colours who tagged along, speaking little and typically in a guttural chatter of K'mir only Thayet of all the children understood. Aged eight, the other girl feared for Buri. _Try to fit in, I know you can speak Common, why don't you grow your hair, you look like a ruffian_: all things Thayet said to her when she was only five. Buri stared at Thayet in the inscrutable way only a vaguely innocent-looking small child could manage. The words had an effect, but not the ameliorating one Thayet wanted; slowly, Buri drifted away from the lowlanders, spending her time solitarily.

**10- a faceless enemy**

Ten, and Buri was too grown-up. Too silent, too self-assured, too good with the weapons her mother had introduced to her, too unnerving. She hadn't lost the blank stare, only intensified it. It was her turn to be worried for Thayet; thirteen was old enough for a beautiful lowlander princess to marry, and some were courting her too assiduously for Buri's peace of mind. She was protective of her only friend, and it was true Thayet needed someone to look after her. Thayet might be good with a bow, but bows were not a close-quarters weapon. So one damp moonless night, in a red room lit by candle-light and smoky with a flickering fire, Buriram Tourakom swore allegiance, protection and her life to Thayet Kalasin's daughter. She swore in blood, and the little straight cut on the base of her thumb was explained away as a slip with a dagger, and the matching one on Thayet's as a papercut. And Buri was so good, so practised when she told her lie in her mother's hearing that for the first time Vanna thought that perhaps she had made a mistake teaching her daughter so early.

**15- we'll suceed unless we quit**

Buri's fifteenth birthday came and went in the ordinary fashion, with the usual storms in the tense political atmosphere that was the warlord's court. The court had been a little more tense than normal for years, a little less peaceful, because Thayet was growing up and growing lovelier with every year. Buri, by contrast, was a quiet, judgemental little shadow –who, incidentally, was not growing at all, unlike Thayet- who practised her weapons in silence, talked to Thayet sporadically in soft K'miri mutters, and liked to have the measure of everyone she met in ten minutes or less. She didn't change and she didn't speak her judgements, and sometimes Thayet clung to Buri in her moments of uncertainty about the future, and whispered her fright, and Buri put her arms around her and murmured tiny shards of K'miri lullabies and wished for peace. The day came, though, early in Buri's sixteenth year, just before her sixteenth birthday, when remaining in the capital was not an option. Buri diced with Fate in her dreams, and she won. Meeting Alanna and Liam was a stroke of luck she wasn't fond of admitting to. Alanna was a friend like those she'd had so few of and Liam another older brother like those she'd had plenty of. Better, Alanna and Liam believed that there was a chance of Thayet and her (as always, Thayet came first) winning out, coming through whole. Buri's sixteenth birthday was the day that they reached the convent, and it was forgotten.

**20- pulled the trigger and shot my friend**

It was nobody's fault that the arrow had missed the bandit she'd meant to hit and hit Raoul instead, but still Buri blamed herself. "It was an honest mistake," Thayet said, and Buri was not comforted. Jon said "You didn't mean to," and Buri wondered if her best friend had married an idiot. Buri had meant to let that arrow fly, and strike true. All that happened was that Raoul got in the way. It had scared her, seeing the eerie surprise on his face, and no doubt –no doubt, Alanna said gently- the shock- only the shock- nothing more- had made Buriram Tourakom scream so, but the knowing expression on Alanna's face told Buri all too clearly that Alanna knew that you don't scream like that for someone who's just a friend. It was writ large in those violet eyes- Alanna knew. Alanna had guessed, possibly from the little clues that Buri was sure she was leaving: not on purpose, but Buri was sure they were there. "Your face is about as easy to read as a large-print book," Buri snapped to cover her confusion, and stamped off to find a salve she knew she had somewhere that might help with the arrow-wound she was responsible for.


End file.
